Puffpals: Island Skies flourishes on Kickstarter and you'll want to hug it

Every great idea was born as a tiny glimmer in someone's mind. An image taking shape from the subconscious and which keeps on growing till it consumes you. That's what happened to Lily. She only wanted to draw and hug her childhood plushies. That's how her idea was born, an idea that saw the light in 2020 thanks to Kickstarter with Fluffnest, a little company where she started selling plushies of adorable creatures called Puffpals. The reception was such that now she has started developing a video game inspired in their universe: PuffPals: Island Skies.

And it seems the idea is resonating in the backers of Kickstarter, as the project is growing stronger in the funding platform and has exceeded its $2 million goal in its sole fundraising month from April 6 to May 6.

Puffpals: Island Skies is defined as a "wholesome life simulator" where you can customise your character and explore a magic world of numerous environments, run your own farm, and collect and customise everything with the Puffpals. These animal-shaped creatures will be your neighbours on the island; as you can see, their behaviour and style looks a lot like Animal Crossing. Villagers, vendors, island's guests... you can become friends with everyone, accept missions or even play mini-games together. It also seems that every Puffpal will have a different nature when interacting with them and will have their own set of missions and needs.

The farm system reminds again of Animal Crossing, though the early designs seem more elaborated than New Horizons', with high-detailed crops and lush vegetation of which we will have to take care and cultivate everyday. Likewise, the household objects, decorations and house design follow Nintendo's title path, even though the game seems to go a step further and will allow us to change the exterior design of the house. Do you want to live in a wooden cabin, in a Hobbit-styled hill, or maybe in a giant fairy-tale-like pumpkin? Possibilities seem to cover a range large enough for every player to design their dreamhouse.

Exploration will allow you to obtain new objects to decorate and customise everything, and also to complete some collection books for mushroom species, rock types and the island's history. We don't know yet how many environments we'll have or how extensive these collections will be, but thanks to the few animations posted at the Kickstarter page we can see some environments, and each will have a very particular style, like a night mushroom forest, a waterfall area, and a village.

All of this combined with a soundtrack that surely takes some of you back to Stardew Valley, with slow-paced melodies and soft tunes that will envelop you with a constant sense of peace.

It has caught our attention, and this will certainly be a title we have to keep an eye on. Its next moves are completing a closed alpha version for PC for next year and then the final version, planned for 2024. Its team has also stated that once the game will be launched, they will start with the ports for mobile devices. We are dreaming about the Nintendo Switch version already, but we will have to wait for that until 2025 at least.

However, it seems that Puffpals: Island Skies is raising high expectations and we love everything we know about the project. We will have to wait to see it working, but we are going to buy our ticket for Island Skies just in case. If you want to support the project, you can visit its Kickstarter page here.